Indigenous doctors 'critical' to closing health gap

The head of medicine at Queensland's James Cook University says more Indigenous students need to sign up to medical courses to help improve health standards in remote communities.

Professor Ian Wronski is speaking on bridging the Indigenous health gap at the First Nations Conference in Townsville in north Queensland this week.

He says it is crucial to have members within a community delivering high standards of health care.

"An Indigenous health workforce, I believe, is a critical part of having more advocates within Aboriginal society who are accessible and culturally accessible and able to deliver health services and advice about health in a way that few others can," he said.

He says there has been an increase in Indigenous students taking up full-time study in medicine in the past five years.

"Currently we have around 170 Indigenous kids enrolled in health professions in medicine, health and molecular sciences here at the moment," he said.

"That's, by Australian standards, pretty good though, even that's got a fair way to go.

"We'll need to keep doing that for a significant amount of time to deal with the demand for Indigenous health personnel and even just in the health system."